


The End of Our Line

by enlili



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bucky and Loki are friends, Canon Universe, Dog Tags, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Loki is a good friend, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve is kinda jealous, the author doesn't know how to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:20:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29442504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enlili/pseuds/enlili
Summary: “You’re doing it again, aren’t you?” he hears sharp voice behind his back, before he sees Loki who sits on the floor next to him after a second.“Doing what?” he asks.“Thinking about it? About him? Agonising?”-in which Bucky leans how to live and love again (not explicit version)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	The End of Our Line

**Author's Note:**

> here's the t-rated version, nsfw parts have been cut out/changed a bit, the rest is the same  
> hope you enjoy!  
> as always, mind you, english is not my mother language (nor is russian, for that matter), so there might be mistakes and/or typos, but don't let that spoil your fun!

The first time it happens, Bucky can’t comprehend what exactly happens even long after. It’s just the fact that everything is so damn real. His metal arm gripping his friend’s neck, artificial fingers rhythmically squeezing his flesh, which starts to become more and more red and lacerative. The look on Steve’s face, his bloodshot, shining with tears eyes that hold so many secrets but none of them form Bucky, are now looking at him so sad that Bucky doesn’t know what to do. There is only one thought inside his head now. So, he does the only thing he knows, the only thing he’s good at. He kills. In the blink of an eye, his fingers tighten. After a mere second there is a deaf sound of a breaking bone and Steve’s body becomes much heavier. For the first time since the end of his killing trainings, Bucky lowers his eyes and doesn’t look at the victim.

“Steve!” he sits up on the bed. He thinks he shouted but it was just a weak whisper, really. His heavy breaths race with an annoying ticking of the clock. He runs the fingers of his flesh arm through his hair and takes off his sweat-soaked t-shirt. He lets the quilt slip lower, around his waist and lays again, looking at the window covered in newspapers. His room is located on the high floor of Stark Tower and the views can be breath-taking from here, but there a part of him that won’t let him indulge. There’s this part of him that tells him he’s in constant danger, that someone will finally find him and kill him, just shoot him from another tower block.

Now, though it’s still dark, Bucky is able to see the shadow the first rays of the sun. He knows he won’t fall asleep again. Not after this. He shuts his eyes, trying to get rid of the image of his friend’s wrenched neck. The friend who is just now sleeping in the room next to his. If he got up, knocked to his door, we would see Steve’s tousled blond hair, peeking out above the quilt, his sleepy eyes and a small smile that is always present at the sight of Bucky. But Bucky knows that we won’t go there. This is ridiculous. This is just his twisted imagination and it was just a normal, stupid, meaningless dream.

Then how come he aches and shakes all over. How come his eyes would be wet with tears, if he could cry any more. How come his heart physically hurts like it’s been the one that was squeezed and not Steve’s neck.

“Steve,” he whispers again, rolls to his side, rests his cheek on a pillow and pretends that everything is fine, just fine. “Why you?”

***

When Bucky went on a war mission for the first time in 1942, Steve, although he doesn’t want to admit it, was terrified. It was when Steve was skinny, and they lived in a shitty apartment. Looking back, Steve knows that the flat’s condition left a lot to be desired, especially with his asthma, but it was theirs and Steve wouldn’t have changed it. It was the closest to home they’ve ever had. But maybe it wasn’t about the place after all. Looking back, Steve can imagine living elsewhere, anywhere, really, as long as he has Bucky by his side.

And maybe exactly that was a problem. After Bucky had gone to the mission, Steve felt like he was living on a borrowed time. His health was a disaster even before that but after Bucky’s departure, he was in falling health. His attacks were more often, and there was no one who could calm him down, no one to just hold him and tell him that everything was going to be okay, even if it wouldn’t. Well, that and the flat was just too big, too cold, and too empty. Steve didn’t like waking up to empty space, empty tables, chairs. This whole damn silence that haunted him for a long time. So, he drew. He drew and drew till his hands ached, till his mind was clear. Many drawings of Bucky, all of them of Bucky. Different poses, closing ups, his whole body, this pretty face. Everything what Steve wanted and the one he didn’t have.

When Bucky came back three months later, he stood in their doorstep, looking at Steve with tears in his eyes. His bag fell out of his hand, the silent thud on the floor. Steve looked at him, too, with that stupid shy smile of his, his fingers clenching and unclenching on the material of Bucky’s shirt that he wore.

Bucky opened then his arms and let Steve hug him tight. Steve’s heart felt so light that night and, before he even knew that he was crying too. Bucky wrapped his hands around Steve’s skinny waist and looked in his eyes with question that Steve didn’t know how to answer to but nodded, nonetheless. Bucky lowered his sight to Steve’s lips and then kissed him, gently and carefully, and Steve would have been mad for treating him like his made out of glass, but he was too busy responding.

Now, Steve thinks about it most time of his days. Every day. But he doesn’t tell Bucky a thing. He also doesn’t tell him the way they used to lock the doors and draw the curtains so that no one could see their kisses and hugs. Or doesn’t tell him the way Bucky’s hand had to cover Steve’s mouth in order to keep him quiet, so no one would hear moans and whimpers, or the way they rolled around in messy sheets. He doesn’t tell him that they made love only when it was raining as another protection, afraid what could have happened, if they had been caught. He doesn’t tell him that Bucky was his first, but Steve wasn’t Bucky’s. It didn’t matter, though, still doesn’t, all Steve has ever wanted was to be Bucky’s last. The doesn’t tell him that they were one breath, pulsing in two different bodies, which de facto were unity. And he doesn’t tell him that Bucky absolutely loved when Steve wore his clothes, and Steve loved the way his eyes followed him with hunger, whenever he did so. He always hated being so small, but he loved the way Bucky’s clothes engulfed him. Too long sleeves, the way it ended just before his bony knees, and the way the fabric would slide off his shoulder what made Bucky grab and paw at him as he whispered “mine” into his skin.

He also remembers how, a few months later, he almost begged Bucky not to go on another mission. Tears in his eyes and his hands shaking. Bucky told him then that everything will be alright, that he will come back to him. Steve had never seen that peculiar look in his eyes but hated it right away, because he knew that, for the very first time in their life, Bucky had lied to him.

Steve thinks about it, about him, about them, and his heart breaks a little more every fucking time.

***

Moving fast and quiet now is much easier for Bucky than it used to be in the past. At least he thinks so, not that he remembers. And that’s the problem. He just fucking can’t remember a thing. Steve keeps telling him all kinds of things related to him, about what he was, about who he was, what he did and what he didn’t. But all of that is just like a big black hole. His mind is vague and refuses to remember anything other than some Russian bullshit. But Steve keeps telling him, and he keeps listening.

“Focus, will you?” he hears sharp voice above his ear, and before he knows it, which is kind of weird, he’s the Winter Soldier after all, his back is hitting the sparring mat. “I told you to focus.” He looks up at Loki who is standing next to him with his hands folded on his lean chest. And, alright, maybe moving isn’t as easy as he thought at the begging, but sometimes, when he starts thinking about this HYDRA thing, he gets distracted, which he shouldn’t because, again, the Winter Soldier thing. 

“I just…” he sits up on the sparring mat and runs fingers through his messy hair; he should cut them finally, but some small part of him strongly disagrees. He presses his palms to his always-tired eyes. “Never mind.”

Loki rolls his eyes, and he passes him a bottle of water. “I think you have enough of practice for one day,” he says and grabs one bottle for himself.

“Helps me not to think,” he mumbles and takes a big sip.

“Yeah, I just saw exactly how much,” Loki rolls his eyes again and lets his long, black hair down. Bucky thinks that Loki doesn’t have to cut them. Bucky is a little jealous. Loki sits on the sparring mat next to him. They sit in silence for a while, just enjoying the emptiness of Stark Tower, since everyone was called out on some stupid mission. Bucky isn’t allowed to take part in those, at least not yet, and Loki is, well, Loki, and Thor does his best to protect his little brother now that he’s back and doesn’t want to conquer Midgard. Loki says he hates it, but Bucky knows how much he loves all the attention he’s getting from his big brother. “James, how are you?” Loki asks suddenly, while Bucky busies his fingers with fiddling with his shirt.

Bucky doesn’t talk very much these days. With anyone, and himself, really. He talks with Steve sometimes, no surprise here, but on the first place is Loki, actually, which, at the beginning was kind of baffling, even to Bucky.

“Look,” Loki says when Bucky doesn’t answer, “I know, I’m not Steve, and not really a person I would trust myself, but…”

“I won’t say I’m fine,” Bucky says a little nervously, but it stops Loki, nonetheless. “I’m not… but I think I’m a little better than I was yesterday. This is what it is all about, isn’t it? Me getting better so Steve’s conscience is clear.”

“You really think so?” Loki asks like his genuinely surprised; Bucky thinks it looks weird on his pretty face. Bucky thinks Loki’s beautiful. His lovely face with big, green eyes, his skin, unlike Bucky’s, is pure and smooth, has no scars, almost glows. Bucky also thinks he shouldn’t be surprised by his beauty, he’s a god _and_ a prince, after all.

Bucky nods slightly and lowers his eyes. “Why would he do it if it wasn’t for him. That’s what people do, they do something only if there is something in it for them,” he says quietly.

Loki looks at him and thinks about each and every time he has heard Steve crying in his bedroom, each and every time he has heard him begging empty walls for Bucky to come back, heard him whispering to himself _you idiot, you’re in love with a dead man_. Steve doesn’t confide in Loki, but Loki is clever and knows very much. He knows that Bucky is the soul of Steve. Even now. Even though, it seems that, for now, Bucky is long gone under the shell of the Winder Soldier. Ghosts haunts people and not places, after all. Loki also knows that it wouldn’t be nice to tell Bucky that.

“So, Steve is doing, what exactly, telling you everything?” he asks instead.

“Yeah, it’s just so frustrating. I mean… he tells me all this stuff, and I don’t fucking know any of those things. Just… sometimes have this… like this flash of a memory but it’s gone just as fast as came.”

“Have you tried to write them down?”

“What?” Bucky is so confused he actually rises his eyes and looks at Loki.

“Those flashbacks, have you tried to write them down?” he asks again. Bucky is silent for a few seconds and then he shakes his head no. “Thor once was talking about it to me for hours, for one of our friends had a trouble with his memory after an accident. I know it’s not the same, and your case is… unique, but maybe you should give it a try.” Loki shrugs and closes his bottle.

Bucky bits his lower lip and considers it for a minute. “Want another round?” he asks out of the blue and points at the sparring mat.

“I told you I think you have enough for one day,” Loki smiles, his green eyes glistening.

“Come on, Loki, one more, and then we order pizza,” Bucky says.

Loki’s smile only widens as he takes Bucky’s hand that helps him get up. Midgard isn’t that great, but pizza sure is.

***

_So, Loki said I should try it, though I’m not convinced. Feel like a fool, like a goddamn baby. But few days ago, I had a dream. Nightmare, really. Again. Steve was there, too, the golden boy from my previous life. Or so he says. Would be easier if I just could remember._

_I remember his skinny body bedridden during each season, and me, sitting next to the bed, praying to non-existent God that he will be fine._

_I remember bringing his ma flowers that I stole or picked in the park. I remember her gentle smile as she let me through the door to the flat. I remember Steve crying into my shoulder when he realised his ma wasn’t coming back ever again._

_I remember a small Brooklyn flat, some furniture covered in dust, pieces of papers, drawings everywhere. I remember him sometimes too. I think he wore my shirt, though I don’t know why. I remember his laugh, or the way his eyes shone when I told him I’ll take him to Coney Island, where he wanted to go for a long time. I remember calling him “Stevie”._

_I remember this for a second and then it’s all gone._

***

Natasha takes Steve to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum about half a year of his life in a modern world. Steve isn’t so sure about this whole idea, not sure if he can handle all of those faces that now are ghosts, all of the memories. But a very small part of him is curious. Why on earth someone would build a museum commemorating their deeds. He has always thought it was his duty to serve his country, that what being a citizen has always meant for him. But Natasha says that she thinks that he should see it, and so here they are.

“So, there’s this part about your fellas,” she says, pointing her fingers at one of the walls of the vast room, “And, I think… yeah, this way, and we should see your face all over this place as well.”

“Nat, I…”

“Look, Steve,” she stops and turns to face him, “I know what you think, and it’s not like I have a great explanation why I dragged you here. I don’t. I just thought it would be good for you. I never got a chance to see my friends again after… everything. And I wanted it to be different for you,” she says with unexpected softness around her words.

Steve smiles at her, he really can’t do anything else, and nods.

They walk a bit and then Steve sees his own face staring back at him. He looks exactly the same as he remembers himself back then. It’s like nothing has changed, except everything has changed. There are pictures, parts of soldiers’ conversations, and even short movies about them. Steve feels overwhelmed by that as well as by the fact that there is so many people there. Especially children. Steve looks at them as they run and laugh and hopes their future is brighter than his. That their bellies are full, and they aren’t bullied.

He looks around when he doesn’t see Nat next to him. She knows how to move silently, that’s for sure. He sees her out of the corner of his eyes, talking with one of the kids, but his eyes focus on something else.

“Oh, God,” he whispers to himself and comes up to another part of the exhibition. He stares at the face of his best friend and lover. For a second it’s like his asthma came back, and he doesn’t know how to breathe anymore. Oh my, does that hurt. He presses his fingers gently to the glass, where Bucky’s smiling face is. Strokes his cheek. The glass is just as smooth as his skin used to be. He closes his eyes. He doesn’t want this this way. “I would trade it all away, if you’d come back to stay with me.”

If Steve could rewrite their story, he would write no war, just a too small apartment in Brooklyn, moonlight coming through the windows. Bucky stretched out on their bed; sheets pooled around his naked waist. An arm held out, private smile on his face and low voice near Steve’s ear.

If Steve could rewrite their story, both of them would already be dead, curled around each other in the same grave.

Natasha finds him in the same place after about twenty minutes later. She puts her hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go back, Steve,” she says quietly.

Steve notices she didn’t use the word “home”.

***

Bucky loves sitting on the roof of Stark Tower. He sometimes thinks about jumping off it, and it’s not the fact that he is not brave enough, he is, it’s just the fact that something doesn’t let him. About his hiding spot knows only Loki, who found him there a while ago. Bucky knows how and where to hide if he doesn’t want to be found. But Loki is a god, so sometimes some of the rules don’t apply to him anyway. But he likes to sit there and think. He does that a lot nowadays. He thinks about everything that he can remember. He carries his notebook now too and scrawls what’s in his brain. He thinks about Steve too. Bucky remembers him vaguely, but more and more start to come to him. He somehow cherishes those little moments and puts them carefully in the remnants of his heart.

“You’re doing it again, aren’t you?” he hears sharp voice behind his back, before he sees Loki who sits on the floor next to him after a second. His eyes lower to the plate in his pale hands.

Even though Bucky is slowly getting better, he still forgets about basic things like eating. It has been multiple times already that Steve, or Loki, or sometimes even anyone else brought him a plate full of food that he eyed suspiciously and only ate a minimum of it.

This time, there is only one single sandwich, Loki knows very well that Bucky won’t eat more either way. It will be a success, if he even eats that. But Loki made it himself and added a unique Asgard seasoning, and, even though, he doesn’t really know why, he wants Bucky to like it.

“Doing what?” he asks as Loki passes him the plate.

“Thinking about it? About him? Agonising?” he says and taps his fingers with painted black nails against the roof.

“I just…” he starts but doesn’t end; Loki probably knows either way.

They sit in comfortable silence for a while, then Loki says, “He still wears them, you know.”

“What?”

“Your old dog tags. On his neck, along with his own."

Bucky takes a sharp breath as he thinks he remembers something akin to the way they used to brush against Steve’s flat chest when they made love, the way Steve would hold onto them, twist them up in his fingers, trying to pull Bucky closer almost chocking Bucky with them. It’s very quick though, long gone before he has a chance to think and take notes. He knows he will forget it in the next minutes.

“No,” he says, feeling that his cheeks get hot, “I didn’t know.”

“Well, now you do. Eat,” he points at the sandwich, his voice sharp.

Bucky doesn’t argue. Loki appreciates that; he knows that Bucky is intelligent. Very intelligent. Loki knows that his intelligence is just as dangerous as his guns. Maybe that’s kind of why Loki feels connected with him somehow, that he thinks that Bucky is worthy of his company, though he tries to not think in that way anymore.

“Tastes good,” Bucky says then, and Loki smiles.

“With little something from Asgard.”

“Should I be afraid?”

“Not anymore,” Loki says, and he means it.

“You never told me about Asgard, about your family,” Bucky states.

“Because there is not much to be talked about.”

Bucky only nods. He, from all people, respects when someone doesn’t want to talk about something. He finishes the sandwich instead. Loki looks down at the city he once tried to conquer. Bucky looks at him and sees that he is broken in a million ways but still he managed to put them together and became stronger, Loki doesn’t have to tell anything. Bucky is proud of him, even though he doesn’t know why exactly.

“My mother was an angel, my father not so much. When I was a child I was bullied by all Thor’s friends,” he tells Bucky after few minutes, in his eyes, the sadness of the whole world. “I felt I… was different, and I tried to fit in. I have spent my whole life trying to become father’s favourite that I haven’t realised I has been Thor’s all along.” A small, secret smile appears on his pretty face. Bucky smiles too.

“I’m glad you have him.”

Loki looks at him, “So am I, James,” he says honestly, “So am I.”

***

_I don’t remember much but I want to. But it just won’t come to me. But there are also things I’d do everything to forget. All this fucking time back then I thought I was leaning how to live but I was learning how to die. I used to think that if hell exists it is on the Earth, and if existence is hell then death must be heaven. But you have to deserve to die. Have to be worthy of it. And I apparently wasn’t. I’m still not. I don’t really want my old life – the one before the war – back, I just want myself back. I feel like a ghost of my past self, like an echo._

_I just feel like a charity no one wants to donate to._

***

Steve also remembers, very clearly, one of the first conversation he had with Bucky after the whole serum thing. They were in a bar together with other soldiers, a small one, kind of secluded.

Steve still felt awkward in his new body, not used to the fact that he was big now. Bucky, on the other hand, looked at him all the time, and Steve couldn’t decipher his sight for shit. They sat at a small table, with their drinks in hands, away from others, trying to maintain as much privacy as it was possible. Steve looked up from his drink at bit his lower lip.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked reluctantly.

Bucky took a sip; his eyes somehow hollow, “What happened? I told you to wait home until I come back.”

Steve looked outside the window. It started to rain again. He had enough of this day, was bloody tired. Their friends laughed loud in the other part of the bar.

“I just… I cannot leave you. I feel as if a link exists between your heart and mine. And should that link be broken either by distance, by time, or by any other goddamn thing, then my heart would cease to beat, and I would die, and you… you’d soon forget about me.”

“You sap,” Bucky smiled a little, “I wouldn’t forget about you. They tried to erase you from my mind for so long, but you’re still there. The only one thing that remained.”

“What are you talking about? Who is “they”?” Steve looked at him concerned.

Bucky opened his mouth and looked terrified for a brief moment, but then his eyes changed again, and he smiled, uncandidly though. “Never mind,” he said, “Better tell me about this,” he pointed at Steve’s whole body, “What the fuck happened?”

“Ah, well, I guess you gotta look up to me now, huh?” he smiled cheekily.

Bucky finished his drink and said quietly, “I’ve always looked up to you, kid.” Steve opened his mouth and wanted to say something, but one of the soldiers called Bucky’s name.

Bucky stood up and, before he walked away, he turned his head over his shoulder, “We’ll talk about it, about everything, alright?” he smiled, his smile was fake once more, “Just a little bit later.”

They never did and never will, and Steve won’t see him for the next seventy years.

***

It’s been a long day. So fucking long. And the worst part is, it’s not over yet. Grim looking creatures are still attacking all of the Avengers in the fucking middle of a city, even though the heroes have already killed more than eighty percent of them. When Fury told them about this mission, it looked like a child’s play, but there is more of those things than expected. And so, they are still fighting. Violently.

Steve is tired. His enhanced body is worn out just a little bit his mind is all-in and demands rest. He’s glad Bucky’s not here. Steve hopes that he won’t have to see any war ever again. He’s already seen more than enough. It’s enough that every time Steve sees him, he’s afraid it’s gonna be the last time.

Steve says nothing to anyone but he’s truly terrified. Bucky goes through those cycles where he seems to get better only to fall apart again. That’s not anything new. But Steve remembers how Bucky was when he first got to the tower and started to live with others, how he’d hurt himself with anything he could find, with anything he could get his hands on, how, on one especially tough night, Steve had to take the knife out of Bucky’s hands before it was too late. These are experiences that he will never forget no matter how much he wants to and will always live in the fear of reliving it again.

He feels weak. The thoughts of Bucky mingle in his head. All those horrible moments, he tries so much to cover with all those pleasing ones. He fails. It appears that, if there’s one thing Captain America can’t do, it’s protecting the love of his life.

“Cap! Careful!” he hears Tony’s scream, and then he sees flashes before him. “He almost got you. Stop daydreaming, could you?”

“Yeah, sorry, sorry.” He shakes his head and nods towards Stark. “Thanks.”

He turns around. Sees Thor and Natasha fighting fiercely. In the distance, he hears the Hulk’s deep voice. But his eyes are now fixed on one of the aliens. His grey fingers curled around one of the humans’ neck. He should move. He should help this poor man. But he doesn’t. He’s frozen. He can only look. He knows what’s going to happen next. He knows that type of killing. Bucky kills in the exact same way. “Please, don’t,” he whispers, “not again.” He really should move but, my God, there’s this pain in his heart now, there’re tears in his eyes, and in his mind there’s only Bucky.

“Steve, what the fuck!” Natasha screams, running and stopping in front of him.

The alien smiles, the lifeless body in his hands.

“I… I…”

“I think you have enough for today,” she says, and looks around. “Sam will fly you to the tower. Come on!” She takes his hand and pulls him towards Sam. They don’t exchange another word; her eyes say it all.

Sam walks him to the door and then flies back to the battlefield. Steve slowly goes to the lift. He looks at his sunken, sad eyes in the lift mirrors. He feels empty. Feels so much and nothing at all. He gets out, when he gets to the floor he wanted. He walks through the living room and thinks he hears muffled voices from Loki’s room. Has to be him and Bucky. They have been spending so much time recently, and if Steve feels jealous because of that he won’t admit it even to himself.

Nonetheless, he knocks quietly at the door to Bucky’s room. He doesn’t expect any answer, since he assumes the room is empty. It’s a polite thing to do, though. But the door opens after several seconds, and Bucky looks at him with curious eyes.

“Steve? Something happened?”

Steve can only stare. “Thought you were with Loki. Heard voices from his room.”

“Ah,” Bucky smiles slightly, “He discovered magic of a mobile phone.” Bucky steps aside so Steve can come in. “Why are you here? Aren’t you supposed to on a mission or something?”

“I was,” he says, looking at the newspapers on the windowpanes. “I…” he sighs, standing awkwardly in the middle of the small room. Bucky closes the door and stands in front of him. “I just… I know this is a strange request, but… could you hug me?” he looks up, his eyes filled with embarrassment.

Bucky ponders for a moment and then says, “A rough day?”

“You have no idea,” he says and immediately wishes he could take it back. Bucky for sure has an idea. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” he says and takes Steve’s hand. Steve’s heart refuses to beat. He leads him to the bed and lies down, dragging Steve down with him.

Steve hides his face in Bucky’s neck, wanting nothing more than to kiss his skin. To check if it’s still the same. More often than not, he finds himself needing reassurance that Bucky’s really here. That it’s not just his twisted imagination. But he can tell Bucky’s uncomfortable, so he lays on his back next to Bucky and waits for him to move. Bucky lightly presses his flesh hand on Steve’s chest, feels the narrow chain of the dog tags Loki told him about, and over his rapidly beating heart, and he startles for a second. “Oh, that is familiar.”

Steve thinks he might cry. He probably will. He puts his hand atop Bucky’s palm and squeezes it slightly. “My heart is happy when I’m with you,” he says, afraid of what the answer may bring.

But Bucky only looks at him and, after what feels like hours, puts his head on Steve shoulder and closes his eyes.

Steve looks at him. Half a corpse and half a god. He is just as beautiful as the day he lost him. But people want to break anything that is beautiful. Steve closes his eyes tightly and lets the cry lulls him to sleep. He pulls Bucky closer. They say one can protect themselves from a human only in the arms of another person. And it seems that even Bucky needs the closeness of another human being just like everyone.

Just like Steve.

***

The room is stuffy and dark, though the lights flash from time to time. Everything is not right. The hectic steps of people, the rustle of paper, the deaf sound of metal hitting metal, the screams that should not be here.

“Again!” he hears a rough voice.

“No! Please no!” There’s another voice, strangely similar one.

“Don’t fight it, little one.”

“No, please. Buck! Buck! Help!”

Bucky looks around, tries to move but his feet just won’t. Then he sees him. A gaunt figure of his friend. In the chair. The HYDRA’s chair. Their eyes lock. Steve looks terrified. There are teras in his pretty eyes. Tears that are blood too, just from his soul and not his body.

There’s a flash and then darkness, and then everyone is gone, and Steve lies on the floor in front of the chair, and Bucky finally moves.

“Steve,” he whispers, running to him and kneeling beside him.

“Buck,” he mouths, “I screwed up. I’m sorry. Please, don’t leave,” he cries. “I can’t breathe.”

Bucky holds him close and the only thing he can do is watch his best friend fade away. “I’m sorry,” he repeats and closes his eyes.

Bucky only holds him closer and stares numbly at the floor.

He abruptly sits on his bed. He should get used to it, he really should. His sleeping span stretches between zero and fourteen hours. Sometimes he sleeps whole days, wakes up only to take a shower and then comes back to sleep again. Sometimes he doesn’t sleep at all. And sometimes it’s just nightmares all the time.

He runs fingers through his hair that he still needs to cut and takes a deep breath. He hears raindrops hitting the glass of windowpanes. He closes his eyes for a moment and stands up. He comes up to the window, he unsticks one corner of the newspaper, so he can look through the window. Rain drops reflect on his cheeks like tears, but he does not cry. He doesn’t know if he actually knows how. Not anymore. Sometimes he just stares blankly into space and feels the remnants of his shattered heart breaking again and again.

He listens to the sound of the rain. He doesn’t know why, but he associates it with Steve. He can’t remember those memories, but he somehow knows they are good ones. Pleasant ones.

He sighs, sticks the paper where it was before, and thinks for a second. He walks out of his room and goes through the corridor to a place, where he knows Loki’s room is. He doesn’t knock, just go inside.

Loki’s lying on the bed with Thor’s body pressed close to him behind him. Bucky knows that it makes Loki feel calm, safe, and protected, he understands it. He comes closer and looks at the brothers cuddling up together. He gently shakes Loki’s arm. The god opens his green eyes and looks up at Bucky.

“He was in the chair,” Bucky whispers.

Loki sighs, carefully pulls himself up from Thor’s arms, much to Thor’s displeasure, and stands up. He covers his big brother with the quilt, a small, private smile on his lips. “Come on,” he says then and walks out of the room, knowing that Bucky will follow after him.

They go back to Bucky’s room. Bucky lies down on the bed, and Loki sits next to him. They just breathe in silence for the next few minutes. This is not the first time Bucky came to Loki searching his company, searching solace.

“I felt the dog tags on his chest,” he whispers then.

Loki looks at him, his eyebrow crooked. “Oh?”

“Why does he wear them?”

Loki rolls his eyes. “What do you think?”

Bucky shrugs. “Doesn’t make sense, what’s it in for him? He doesn’t want me.”

Loki snorts, “Of course he does, you’re too clever not to see it, trust me, I know, but… I’m sorry to say that, but you barely know who you are and, I think… he’s too respectful to you.”

“You know something I don’t?” The way Loki looks at him is a sufficient answer.

“Go to sleep, James,” Loki says, and brushes Bucky’s hair from his face.

“I feel like I could have loved him,” he whispers sleepily. “It’s just… I loved him too early and he loves me too late.” He is silent but speaks again a few minutes later. “It was scary, Loki, he in this fucking chair.”

“It was just a nightmare, James,” he tries to calm Bucky, his fingers still playing in the man’s hair.

“Yeah, one I still can’t wake up from,” he says and then ponders for a second.

Loki knows very well that Bucky is haunted by the thought that what Steve wants is the image of Bucky he once had and not who he is now, meanwhile all Steve dreams of is to have Bucky back in his life, no matter what form he takes. That Steve is scared every day of his life that one day when he leaves the building and then comes back, Bucky will not be here, and he’ll never see him again. Like his gonna vanish from my life, and he wouldn’t even know he were real, but for the memories.

“Loki… would you describe us as friends?” Bucky asks suddenly.

Loki looks at him wide-eyed. “I don’t know. I still don’t understand human’s language.”

“Me neither.”

Loki smiles and presses his palm gently to Bucky’s forehead. He lets his magic flow through him and calm Bucky, taking his nightmares away, even if only for a while. He waits until Bucky falls sleeps, and then goes back to the safety of his brother’s arms.

***

“Bucky, can we talk?” Steve asks, as Bucky gets up from the living room’s couch where he sat next to Loki, who is leaning against Thor’s stomach.

Bucky looks at him, and still sees the scared boy from his last dream. “I don’t want to,” he says and goes to his room, leaving Steve bewildered.

“Need help?” Loki asks.

Steve’s angry. He’s been trying to talk to Bucky for the last few days, but Bucky talks only with Loki.

“Shut up,” he hisses.

“Watch your language, it’s my little brother you’re talking to,” Thor says defensively.

Loki smiles at him, when Thor puts his arm around him, then he looks up at Steve. “You made a home out of him and now you’re begging him to stay.” Steve gulps, Loki continues, “He’s the only love you have ever known.”

“Stop.”

“He’s all you have, the last thing that remained from your past life. He’s the only one that makes you feel like _you_.”

“Enough!” Steve says loudly, losing his temper a bit, ignoring Thor’s sharp look directed at him.

Loki looks pleased, but then his face becomes more serious, “But you are everything he has here too. In his head, there are so many voices, but only without yours he can’t live. He thought love has died, but you proved him wrong. He just doesn’t know yet. Give him time.”

Steve can only stare.

“Did he… did he tell you that?”

“He didn’t have to. I am a god,” Loki smiles, “I know stuff.”

***

Bucky kind of likes Steve’s room more than he thought he would. It’s quite a nice room. He checks for wiretaps now and again, though. Old habits die hard. Steve’s room is quiet. It has big widows, and they aren’t covered in newspapers, but Bucky goes with it, because there are no high buildings on this side of the tower. One could say it is even cosy, but then again if you spend many years in the metal chair and ice, everything is cosy.

Bucky has been thinking for a long time, and now he stands in the middle of said room, fidgeting with his fingers of the flesh hand and not-so-his fingers of the metal one.

“Buck?” Steve looks up at him from the place where he sits on the bed, reading.

“Can I stay here?” Bucky asks with his eyes glued to his bare feet.

He hears Steve placing the book on the bedside table, and the rustle of sheets that he pulls down in a gesture of an invitation.

Bucky waits till Steve switches off the lights, then goes willingly and lies down next to Steve.

It’s dark. Steve can only see faint outlines of Bucky’s features, but it’s enough. Steve reaches to grab his hand, spreads the fingers of it and places it over his heart. Bucky feels the strong pumping of it beneath his hand and suddenly wishes he could reach into Steve’s chest and curl his fingers around the organ itself, to feel him even more, to make sure he’s alive and it’s not just his imagination that tells him so.

“You’re safe with me,” Steve tells him and tries very hard not to think about how Bucky wasn’t safe when Steve let him fall out of that train.

He fails.

Bucky removes the hand and puts it under Steve’s shirt, pushing the fabric up. The thump of Steve’s heart along with the heat of his skin is a new kind of comfort Bucky so desperately needs and it sinks right into his bones. He falls asleep like that between the beats he can’t help himself but count.

Bucky came to his room that night and stayed for longer than he thought he would.

***

One day Bucky wakes up alone. Not a big surprise, really. It’s quiet for once. So quiet. He suspects Steve went to the kitchen to eat and make Bucky breakfast he won’t eat.

Bucky sits up on the bed and looks at the book Steve’s been reading for the last two weeks. _True history of 1942_ , the title says. Bucky shrugs and shakes his head. There’s a notebook under it. One Bucky hasn’t seen before. He reaches for it and looks at it. It has the evidence of being used often. Bucky opens it. Right after the cover there are some old, yellowed pieces of papers. Bucky look at the man depicted in them. The man he used to be. The face, the body that belonged to James Buchanan Barnes. The drawings are really good, he wouldn’t expect of Steve nothing less.

The first one is just his face. The smooth skin, cheerful eyes, a wide smile. Everything he doesn’t remember about himself, everything he wants to be again. It’s the next ones that make him gasp though. They are not innocent. Head thrown back, lips parted, body naked, legs spread. There’s another one, his naked body hugging close another, smaller one. His face hidden in the other’s neck. His one hand holding the slim waist.

Bucky is perplexed. He looks at other drawings. Those are new. There’s this one, depicting him as he sleeps. His longer hair lies on his shoulders and cheeks, his lashes long, resting. The precision of this is somewhat terrifying.

He looks back at the vulgar ones. He closes his eyes then, and sees, and remembers. Remembers himself and Steve in their old apartment. Remembers their naked bodies pressed so close together. Remembers the way Steve’s skinny fingers dug into his skin. Remembers the feeling of Steve’s skin, his lips, his everything. Every heavy breath, every wet dream, every dirty word whispered in his ear, every forbidden kiss. Remembers the look on Steve’s when Bucky tells him how pretty, how good he is. With the drawing in his hands, he knows he won’t forget again. He has a clear evidence.

Bucky opens his eyes terrified and closes the notebook. He puts it back on the table and goes back to his own room.

He doesn’t get out of there for the next week.

***

He goes back to Steve’s room after another two weeks.

He climbs on the bed, on Steve, and says, “Touch me.” Steve looks at him with wide eyes. “I remember. Touch me.” He puts Steve’s hands on his hips and presses his lips to Steve’s.

Steve doesn’t know what to do. He waits for a second and then kisses back. Bucky moans and kisses him harder, pulling his shirt up his chest, wanting it off.

“Wait, wait,” Steve tries to catch up to his brain. “What do you want, Bucky?”

Bucky takes off his sweater and places his hands on Steve’s chest.

Steve looks at the place where mechanic hand is connected to Bucky’s body and gasps. There are marks that look very much like claw marks. Steve suspects that those were actually made by Bucky’s nails when he tried to detach the arm from his body. Steve’s sure he hears his heart break all over again.

“Steve,” Bucky spurs.

Steve rolls them so that Bucky is on his back, and Steve looks down at him with soft eyes.

“I don’t have much, but I would give you everything. I hope you know it.”

Bucky looks at him slightly dumbfounded.

“Touch me,” he repeats, his tone harsh. He takes Steve’s hand and places his on his cock.

Steve takes a hint and slowly pulls the sweats down his body and off. Bucky lies before him all naked, so skinny now that he doesn’t eat much, and he still takes Steve’s breath away. He studies Bucky’s body all over again, after all these years. The same body of a boy – a man – he’s sketched so many times he is unable to count. To untrained eyes this body may seem entirely different but to Steve, it has never changed. There are scares, of course there are. Many of them. Some of them are cuts, some bruises, there’s even something that looks like a scorch, and Steve does his best to not think about how that happened. Steve wants to kiss all of them, kiss it all better, even though he knows he can’t. But there’s also the same little spot on his lower belly which Steve loved – still does – to kiss, the same quivering thighs under his hands, the same lovely moles on his hips. Steve can’t help himself but smile. Though they are older and a lot worse for wear there’s not much difference between two dashing boys from Brooklyn who joined the war and the two haunted men who cling to each other like it’s their only anchor.

He wants to kiss this body, put his mouth on every part of him, but Bucky grabs his hand, “Fucking, touch me.”

Steve’s a little confused but complies.

But Bucky says, “C’mon.” He closes his eyes and growls. As Steve moves his hand over his body, Bucky takes his other one and puts on his neck. He tightens their fingers around it. “навредить мне, Steve, наказать меня. я прошу тебя,” he says, and Steve stares at him with open mouth. He didn’t tell Bucky, but he has started learning Russian for Bucky some time ago to help him cope. He understands a little. But even if he didn’t, then Bucky says, “Please, make it hurt, punish me,” and Steve feels like he might cry.

He takes both his hands away from Bucky’s body.

“What?” Bucky says, “Don’t you want to fuck me?” he stares at Steve. He still looks like an angel whose wings are just a bit broken.

“No,” Steve says, his voice sad, “Not like this.”

“Thought you love me, or something.” In his mouth, that sounds like a revolution. “That’s not right, you’re supposed to love me.”

“I do. And this is why I can’t do it. And what is done in love is done well.”

Bucky looks at him for a second more and then, without saying another word, gets up, takes his clothes and walks out of Steve’s room.

Steve looks at the door that has just closed behind Bucky, his hand on his chest. He wonders if he has just lost Bucky all over again.

Steve’s wonders if he will go to Hell.

***

_If I still know what love is, I think I love him. He makes me feel like a human. But I don’t think I know what love is anymore and that is the problem. I’m a monster. I feel like one. How could I not? When is monster not a monster, Steve?_

_Steve, someday, someone will find their home in your arms, I promise you, but it ain’t gonna be me._

_I’ll come back to you when I find me._

***

“Loki, have you seen this?” Steve tosses Bucky’s notebook at the table in front of where Loki is painting his nails.

“That’s Bucky’s.”

“Yeah, I know that much,” he says in distress, and Loki looks at him out of the corner of his eye. “I just… I want to know more. I have no idea where he is. Haven’t seen him for the last few days… Have you?”

Loki shakes his head, “No, I haven’t.”

“Has he told you anything? I know you two are close,” he says with a hint of jealousy that he’s not proud of.

Loki’s lips twitch a little, “No, Steve, he hasn’t. I really don’t know where he is. If it makes you feel better, I’m worried too.”

Steve sighs, takes the notebook in his hands, reads the lines again. _When is monster not a monster, Steve?_ “When someone loves you,” he whispers.

“You were saying?” Loki asks.

“Never mind. I’m going,” he says.

“Where?”

“Out.”

***

Natasha finds Steve in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum five hours later, where he is staring at the Bucky’s wall.

She puts her palm on his shoulder. “Steve, you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved,” Nat says quietly, almost afraid of her own words, like she knows their weight. She probably does, Steve thinks.

They stand in silence, looking at Bucky’s smiling face.

“That has never stopped me before. Not when it’s him,” Steve says and then looks at Nat. “We’re going to beat it, like we always do. Whatever it takes.”

***

It’s not like Steve expected the days to go by smoothly, but he didn’t expect them to drag on so slowly. His head is aching more often than not, and he just doesn’t feel like himself, there is no other way to put it.

He spends most of his time either in his room or with Natasha. He thinks that she understands. She has lost everything there was to lose and yet she’s here; the most powerful woman he knows. She pats his back and runs her slim fingers through his hair. He smiles at her sometimes. He thinks she appreciates that. She smiles at him too. Steve doesn’t know how she is still able to smile. He doesn’t question that, he’s wiser than that. He just lets her hug him and pretends everything’s alright.

But it’s not. It hurts like hell. Steve doesn’t know that it is possible to hurt his much without having anything broken. But it feels like it is even worse.

“I just… I don’t know if I cannot not love him. I want to come for all the monsters that ever touched him, for all of the ones who twisted his stars into shadows. They tried and turned him into a nightmare, and I want to be theirs. I do love him, Nat,” he tells her one night, during one of their midnight conversations, about three months after Bucky disappeared. They are lying on her bed, close but not quite touching, just looking into each other eyes and sharing the warmth. “I don’t think I know how to stop. And I don’t think I remember not loving him. I just always have. Womb to tomb,” he whispers, his eyes watering again. “And now I feel like he was never truly mine, but losing him all over again breaks my heart… I didn’t even know there was anything to break any more.”

“Oh, Steve. He was yours, still is, I think,” she assures him, trying to wipe away the tears on his cheeks with her sleeve. “I think he is just as lost as you are. And if two lost people go together, they just won’t find the way. I think he didn’t know how broke he was until someone was kind to him,” she squeezes his shoulder and puts her head on it. “But I do believe he will come back. After all, he has always come back to you, hasn’t he?”

***

“So, this is where you’re hiding now? I’m kind of disappointed, James,” Loki says, hugging himself.

“Loki? What the fuck?” Bucky turns around from his place in the small kitchen and looks at the slightly amused god. Or more like on an illusion of him. “What the fuck?” he repeats.

“Did you miss me?” Loki teases with a smile.

“What are you doing here?” he puts a bottle of beer he was holding on the worktop, his eyes still glued to Loki.

“Oh, no, the right question is, what are _you_ doing here,” he says, looking genuinely curious. Bucky sits at the table and looks down at his hands. “Come on, James. It’s been almost half a year.”

“I know,” he whispers. “And I think I figured everything out.” He runs his finger through his hair. He has finally cut it. It’s shorter now but not as short as before the war. Just slightly below his ears, sweptback. “I think I found my home in Steve. I think I love him because he makes me feel like a human, and home is where I am with him. I’m talking gibberish, that doesn’t have any sense.”

“I beg to differ. I’m glad you realised that, I really am. But if you did, then why on earth are you here and not with him?” Loki puts his hands on his slim hips and tilts his head, his hair long, black and perfect.

“I’m scared,” Bucky mumbles.

“Of?”

“Myself.” Bucky looks up at the illusion. Loki’s eyes soften. “What if I fuck everything up all over again?”

“The last time was hardly your fault. You’re not a villain here, you’re a victim, James. You love him, and he loves you, simple as it is,” he shrugs. “Look, I haven’t made a promise in over a thousand years, but if you don’t come back, I promise I will drag your sorry ass there by myself,” he says, and it earns him a small chuckle from Bucky.

Bucky nods slightly, “Alright.”

“Alright, what?”

“Alright, I promise.”

Loki smiles and after a second vanishes from a small, abandoned apartment in the middle of Brooklyn.

***

There is a knock on the door of his room. Steve stands up from the bed he was lying on, and he goes slowly to open it.

He does. He freezes.

There’s this pretty face he has been dreaming about for his whole life and the last night.

“Buck,” he breathes.

“Steve.”

“Oh my God, it’s really you. You’re here,” he says, not knowing what to do with his body.

He looks at him. Bucky looks sort of different. New hair, for sure, but there’s also something else that Steve can’t pinpoint.

“Will you hug me?” Bucky asks awkwardly, but Steve puts his arms around him and presses himself close to him.

“I’ve missed you,” he can’t refrain himself from saying. “You’re not gonna leave me again?” Steve feels that Bucky shakes his head. That calms him a little. He puts his head atop Bucky’s, not letting him go. “I promise I won’t do anything stupid,” Steve says after a moment.

“You’ve already done. You let me into your life,” Bucky says quietly.

“That was the wisest thing I’ve ever done.” He pulls back and looks at Bucky’s face. “You know this is everything I have ever wanted, right?” Steve asks.

Bucky opens his mouth but closes it after a second. He nestles up to Steve again, pulling him even closer. Steve kisses his head but says nothing.

They stand in Steve’s door for the next hour.

***

In the next three weeks Bucky makes a new habit. Every night he goes to Steve’s room, slips under the quilt. At the beginning Steve doesn’t touch him at all, afraid that it will scare Bucky away, but as the time go by, they start lying closer to each other until finally they touch, just a bit. Steve puts his arm around Bucky’s waist, rests his face in Bucky’s neck. Bucky hugs his back to Steve’s chest, puts his cold feet on Steve’s calves. Every time Steve wakes up, Bucky is gone.

One time Steve wakes up earlier. It’s still dark. Bucky’s still here. He looks soft and vulnerable. He looks calm. Steve smiles, brushes brown hairs out of his face, and kisses his cheek.

Bucky opens his eyes.

“Move in here. Let’s share this room,” Steve suggests. “There’s an empty spot in my arms that has your shape.”

Bucky gasps. He thinks for a bit, then says, “And what if I don’t want to have sex, do we have to? Is it required from me?”

Steve is a but baffled. Out of every possible question, he wasn’t expecting that one. “No, Bucky, we don’t have to, and nothing is required.”

“And you won’t be disappointed with me?”

“No, Bucky, I won’t be.”

“And you won’t leave me?”

“No, Bucky, I won’t leave you.”

“And you won’t-”

Steve silences him with a kiss and says, “No, Bucky, I won’t.”

Bucky smiles widely, just the way Steve missed, “Okay, let’s share the room.”

***

“So, this was in 1942, when you first went for a mission,” Steve says, pointing at Bucky’s portrait in the museum where he took him. He looks at him and squeezes his hand. “You were so brave, so dashing, everyone loved you, me included. You were everything I ever wanted to be,” he says and looks into Bucky’s blue eyes. They seem a little less confused as the days go by. 

Bucky has been making a lot of progress with the help of others. It seems, he finds himself anew piece by piece.

“So, you went on that mission, and it was one of the hardest times of my life. I missed you so dearly, and all I wanted was to get you back. I’d have done everything to have you back by my side.” Bucky listens him with his eyes wide open. It’s probable that he has already heard it before as Steve tells him so much, but he likes to hear it, nonetheless. “And so, I did exactly that. When you went on yet another mission, I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I let them inject the serum so I could go, so I could have you back, which was selfish, because you’d told so many times to stay in Brooklyn, but I never listen, you know I never do. And two months later…” he points their linked hands in the direction of one of the photos on the wall. They’re both in it, smiling, looking at the map of Europe. They stand in silence staring at two men whom they used to be.

Steve looks at Bucky then. “Every version of me loves every version of you and nothing in this fucking world is ever going to change that,” Steve whispers, and Bucky at first is taken aback because Steve never swears. Only after a few seconds does the realisation sinks into his bones. He wraps his arms around Steve’s waist and hugs him tightly, not caring if anyone sees. “You wrap your name tight around my ribs and keep me warm. I was born for you.”

“Are you quoting poems now, Steve?” he looks at him with a private smile.

“Mm, don’t pretend you don’t like it.”

“A sap will always be a sap,” he chuckles.

Steve is delighted at the sound. “Takes one to know one.”

***

Almost a year later, they still sleep in the same bed, in the same tower. It’s a rainy morning; one of those that Bucky associates with Steve wholeheartedly. It’s still early. Steve doesn’t have newspapers covering the windows, and Bucky looks through it. The raindrops hit the windowpane much the same as they did in Brooklyn, just the window is bigger and doesn’t let the water and the wind through.

Bucky cuddles up to Steve even closer. He’s so warm. The white sheets cover them, but Bucky is sure he would be equally warm without them. He turns and looks at Steve who is still asleep. Sometimes Bucky can only stare and all he sees is scrawny kid who tried too hard to be a hero. The boy whom Bucky forever admires. He lowers his eyes till they rest on the dog tags that Steve refuses to take off. He touches the fragile chain and their engraved names.

“Steve,” he whispers. “Stevie.”

“Hm?” he says sleepily. Bucky can only smile. He waits until Steve opens his eyes and focuses on him.

“Will you touch me?” he asks shyly. He can almost feel Steve’s thoughts coming back to the last time he demanded that from him. “Will you make me feel loved?” he bites his lip, afraid of what the answer can be.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, please,” he says. Throughout the whole year Steve hasn’t mention this topic, left it all up to Bucky.

Steve smiles, “Yeah, yes, okay. Let’s make up for lost time, you have so many places unkissed.”

So, Steve does touch him and kiss him exactly the way Bucky wants – with reverence, and so, so much love and adoration.

“Oh, Bucky. I love you so much,” Steve whispers almost out of the blue but not really.

“I love you too, even though it feels like something bigger than love. If that’s possible.”

Steve hugs him closer, wraps him in his arms, “Let’s just called it ours then, shall we?”

Bucky looks him in the eyes and smiles, “Ours, I like that.”

Steve puts his head atop Bucky’s, something he loves to do, and sighs contently. He sometimes thinks about those fragile moments that Bucky still has in which he keeps repeating that he doesn’t fit anywhere. Steve disagrees.

Bucky fits in his arms just perfectly.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!  
> if you have any thoughts/opinion don't be shy to leave it! everything is appreciated!


End file.
